under huge amounts of pressure that they probably will not in the last couple of generations anyway. >> host: you don't have children now but you probably will some day. what would you do if you had a child that started showing signs of depression, anxiety. how would you medicate? >> guest: i wouldn't medicaid immediately but i wouldn't waste a lot of time. i think children's lives are really precious and their childhood and teenagers are precious and short. there is only so much time you have if i had seen a number of months of this they were really impaired and seemed unhappy, i would. >> host: that's what you've learned from your experience and the message would give to other parents as well? >> guest: yes, there would be the tecum that the child is in paris and not functioning the way he or she should be don't let them go on that we indefinitely.

>> host: this has been fascinating. the book is great. it really should be a must read for people now everyone caught up in the debate of kids and medicine and you shine a light and have a fresh perspective and it is a really worthwhile. again, the book is dosed the medication generation grows up. thank you so much. ..

mark skousen, cofounder of freedom fest, talked to booktv about his book, "the making of modern economics." this is about 20 minutes. >> you are watching booktv on c-span2, and we are on location in las vegas, nevada, at bally's hotel come up for freedom fest, it is an annual event organized by this author, mark skousen. mr. mark skousen, what is freedom fest and how did it come about? >> it is kind of a renaissance gathering. we talked politics, philosophy, technology, religion, healthy living, we have a little bit of everything for everybody. we get a very wide group, we even have an investment conference, we get concerned citizens about where our country is headed. our focus is on political

economics and financial freedom. it is growing. we are bigger every year. we have over 2000 people here at this event. in fact, next year we will be moving to caesars palace. i think it'll be a good, controversial topic. >> isn't sponsored by the libertarian party, the libertarian groups, and are you a libertarian? >> well, i hate labels. when i get up and get my talk, i always say let's treat everyone as an individual. everyone has different points of view. we don't like political labels at all. libertarian would be the closest thing, if you wanted to identify me in some sense. >> okay. >> freedom fest is not connected in any way to political party. it is a for-profit organization. we invite the think tanks, and

cato institute, the heritage foundation, as well as freedom works and americans for prosperity. some of those nonprofit organizations. we don't compete with them at all. you pay a single price of about $500 per person, and you have three wonderful days that we bring an intellectual feast to a fun city. las vegas. it is pretty cool. >> what is your background? >> well, i grew up in portland, oregon. i am an active mormon. i went on a mission to the mormon church and graduated from byu and worked for the cia. then i broke out into the financial world. since then, i got married, i have five children, i moved to the bahamas for two years. life in living color, saved enough money to move to london where we bought a flat.

then there were 71 countries i visited, i have written about. it is my primary source of income. my investment book is call forecasts and strategies. i have written a number of books on economics and i teach economics and business at rollins college in florida. columbia university in new york, and also at mercy college. that is a summary, and i should mention that freedom fest, my wife does the film festival here as well. we have a lot of things that we do. we have really enjoyed it. >> very quickly, what did you do for the cia? >> that's a good question. actually, i was an economist. i was very much involved with commodities and the energy crisis in the 70s. you know, the cia was too bureaucratic for me. so i wanted to break out into something more entrepreneurial. so i got involved in the financial revolution and started being the managing editor of a

newsletter called the inflation survival letter in the 1970s. which is now called personal finance. it is much more of an establishment name. my own newsletter, forecasts and strategies, it was started when ronald reagan was elected. i consider myself a great survivor in many ways. i have maintained some of my contact to the cia. i think they are a good source for information. we are a global economy. the cia does everything. the cia did research on basically everything, political, economic, financial, you name it. >> well, mr. skousen, we invited you to talk about "the making of modern economics." this is the second edition of the book correct? >> the first edition came out in

2001. it took me about five years to actually sit down and write. a lifetime of learning minute of it. the second edition came out right after the financial crisis in 2009. we thought it needed to be updated after that event. my final chapter is doctor smith goes to washington. a triumph of free-market economics. of course, that was a little premature, considering what has happened since 2008. so we had to revise that final chapter, especially. >> how is this book organize? >> well, initially, when i tried to do, peter, was create an alternative to the popular book the worldly philosophers. it's such a great title. it is a story of the great economic thinkers starting with adam smith and covering karl marx and john maynard keynes and all those people.

his favorite economists were all very pro-government activists, whatever you want to call them. my perspective is more, i wanted a more balanced approach. so i wanted to highlight one of the free-market thinkers, and what their role was. the heroic figure in my book is adam smith, the founder of modern economics. so i discovered by making adam smith the central character of my book and the theme of natural liberty, i was able to actually tell a story. this book is actually a story with a plot, how adam smith and the system of natural liberty are treated over time. how they come over under attack and how they are resurrected and

brought back to life and even improved upon so it is really a unique, i think i've done something very unique. in this textbook is popular because i make it a historic story, the character triumphs in the end. he is the model that i see as the ideal. >> who was loved while monday's -- ludwig von mises. >> he initially taught at the university of vienna. he left during world war ii. he came to america, and his economics became more popular during that time period.

he is certainly a heroic figure in my book with the austrian school. one of his closest associates won the nobel prize in economics in 1974. so yes, he is an important character in my book. >> when they talk about the austrian school, what is that mean? >> well, it is one of two major schools of economics. the other schools the chicago school and this is a more hard-core school that advocates the gold standard, it is very suspicious of intervention by central banks. particularly, the business cycle is very important because they say the manipulation of interest rates by the federal reserve can only have disastrous effects. it is a cycle that is unsustainable, a boom that will

inevitably lead to a crash. it did not surprise the austrian economist at the boom did not last and had these effects. >> also there was possible easy. >> oh, i have a whole chapter on marx. so you know my view about him. each chapter has these very clever titles. i tried to create them. for milton, it is milton friedman's paradise. >> posses a great attitude. he defended him at harvard to teach there, finally he got kicked out and started his own

monthly review or publication. something like that, to defend socialism and marxism. and he got albert einstein to write for the first issue. kind of like getting marilyn monroe to pose for the first issue of playboy. he was a brilliant man who died a few years ago, kind of the representative of the marxist academic point of view. as i point out, the markets -- the marxists are very pessimistic. both schools are very pessimistic. the twilight of capitalism. marxists are constantly rewriting that title, that capitalism is about to collapse at any time. the austrians have the same thing. the economic boom that we just cannot last. it must end in a rash or depression. i am a little bit more

optimistic, i'm in the chicago school in that sense, milton friedman, which have a major chapter on. he is an optimist, and so my. i am much more of an optimistic believer in our country, and the way that economics is taught. >> is there a contemporary look money -- he is a modern-day economist. he is a very popular finance guy. he is not really an academic. from the chicago school, of course, there would be gary becker. he is getting up there in age. he must be 80 years of age. as far as young people that are coming up, maybe some people at the george mason university,

which is a hotbed of austrian economics and public choice economics, young people that are coming out, i'm not sure that there is anything really of that stature who is writing columns for "the new york times" and so forth. again, he is in his 80s. it is hard to say. i mean, what my book is one of the most popular chess books. i've been on the tv shows and stuff, you know, maybe i am laying it little bit of a roll. friedman always said that he stood on the shoulders of giants. just as isaac newton said. i feel the same way, but i benefited so much for all these great economists who have come before me. >> mark skousen, you said that you teach. where are you teaching?

>> i teach at mercy college and also one at sing sing penitentiary. i was teaching at columbia university. teaching the best and the brightest. i will tell you what, i teach in a maximum security prison. they are all male. i teach economics and business, they have an incredible thirst for knowledge. it is unbelievable how these men have been in prison and committed crimes in their youth, not trying to turn their lives around, i have had students at sing sing who had read the entire textbook before coming to class, and i could not say that about others. my wife teaches english literature at sing sing. it is a four year college degree program. all privately funded except for the prison itself. no pell grants or federal or state money, we have a nonprofit called hudson link that deals with that.

it actually describes the whole sing sing education program. >> what is that like in education. >> well, i will tell you that it is such an emotional, thrilling, rewarding experience. both for my wife and i to teach these young men, and some of them are older, those who have done heinous crimes and have seen the error of their ways. warren buffett was there.

you go to this graduation ceremony, and it's incredible. first of all, there is no separation of church and state. they are saying amen, their bible, and what have you, it is fantastic in that respect. they had the valedictorian get up representing the graduates. maybe 20 or 30 students graduating, getting an associates degree or bachelors degree. the valedictorian gets up and says that i started off, my parents had the best hopes for me. i got into drugs and what have you, and then he says, and then i killed a man. even though that you know that they are in there for murder what have you, it is still a shock to everybody. but then he describes how the

educational programs transformed his life. and how they feel that they are the new citizens. because of this change. what is getting notoriety, when my son was able to do the movie, 0%, 0% for something like 60 of the students have left sing sing, graduated and let sing sing. those who have left, not a single one has returned. the national rate is over 60%. you know, this is a great, positive story. we hear all these stories about how bad the criminal justice system is. here is one that is working, and that it's all privately funded. i think it is a great libertarian story. >> do you stay in touch with any of the students?

>> yes, inmates and students that have since left. we get to see them and communicate with them and see what they are doing. they all got jobs. this is the exciting thing. you are in a market where jobs are scarce and they all have jobs. you know, they have gone through jail, they have been through this tough life. now they can say look what i have accomplished. i graduated from college and i have a bachelors degree. and there were some of these guys who didn't even graduate from high school and ended up in this trouble. it is a great experience. the graduation ceremony, staying in touch, my wife talks a lot about things. you can tell by my enthusiasm of the program that it's great. >> mark skousen, do you have a follow-up to the "the making of modern economic